Food battles

[Razor X]

I've always been a fussy eater.  There are certain things that are staples of most people's diets that I just won't eat -- mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, and most seafood dishes, just to name a few.  I was much, much worse as a child and some of the recent posts have reminded me of some of the food-related battles I had with my mother when I was growing up.

For the most part, she let me do my own thing.  As long as I picked out two or three vegetables that I could eat, she generally didn't force me to eat the ones I didn't like.  But she did periodically decide to lay down the law and make me eat whatever she thought I should eat.  These crackdowns didn't last very long; I always knew I could wear her down eventually, but they generally did last a couple of weeks each, and they always rough.

One of my earliest memories was being sent to bed without dinner at the age of 3 or 4 for refusing to eat a beef stew, though my mother later relented and let me get up if I would agree to eat a grilled-cheese sandwich.  I'm not sure how long I was in bed.  Probably not long but it seemed like an eternity at the time.  We also had the usual battles over things like broccoli, asparagus and Brussels sprouts, none of which I will eat to this very day.

It's one thing to make children eat a healthy, balanced diet, but some of the battles she picked were just insane.  I can remember nearly gagging to death on Kraft macaroni and cheese (served as a side dish, not as the main meal).  Why force someone to eat something like that?     And I can remember another time when she made minute steaks for lunch and put pickle relish on them before she served them.  Now she knew I didn't like pickle relish (I still don't) but she told me I had to eat it because everybody else was eating it and it was too much trouble to keep track of my individual likes and dislikes.  I was like, really?  It's too much trouble not to put pickle relish on one steak?  And it's not like she was trying to feed an army; she only had two kids.  Of course, if I brought any of this up today, she'd deny that it ever happened.   

[Paul the Headblader]

honestly, when I was a child I used to eat everything came in my way.
Now, I use to cook my own food, and I'm preety good at it.
Swear to fake god my mom never, ever told me what and when to eat.

[Laser Man]

My parents had somewhat limited tastes in food, so my mother would never make anything that she or my dad didn't like. So, we never had liver, brocolli, rice, lamb, asparagus or grilled foods. Seafood was limited to tuna out of a can on a very rare occasion. We had to at least try everything that was put on the table. Well, that's not fully true - if my middle brother didn't like something, my mother made him a different dish or a separate portion made the way he liked it!

My wife and I had our daughters try things, but we never got into food battles. Both girls now have very expansive tastes in foods.

[D.A.L.U.I.]

The battle cry in our house was "cosmopolitan"--try everything or you'd be labled as not being cosmopolitan!  But both my parents were great cooks, both brought foods to my experience that most people probably never see today.  Favorites of mine were tripe stew, Dad's family, hog's head cheese, my Grandmother would go to the slaughter house--it was still legal then--and get a hog's head and after much goings on in the kitchen there would be hog's head cheese, and sometimes she'd be able to get blood for blood sausage!  Sweetbreads were and still are another favorite.  If it can be pickled--I'll eat it.  Pickles are a major food group for me--but I prefer the ones put up and sold in farmers' markets or country stores--watermelon pickles, yum.   Vegetables, almost all of them are good although I'm not too fond of stewed okra and tomatoes--it's kind of slimy, but fried okra is a real treat. We ate the "regular" foods too, but because Dad loved to hunt and fish, venison, quail, duck, chucker, brook trout, cutthroat trout, salmon were also regulars at our table.   The overarching concept though is properly prepared, especially not overcooked and the ingredients must be fresh.  I rarely eat anything canned or frozen, and if it's not real butter, it belongs in a mechanic shop for grease, not fit food.  Olive oil is also a favorite.  Mushrooms--life wouldn't be life.  Seafood--there isn't any seafood I don't like--one time in Venice, not speaking Italian, I just pointed and wound up with a plate of small eels--delicious. 
I wasn't fond of a few foods--beans, ketchup and tomato sauces generally although I loved tomatoes, turkey--but that was definately a minor part.  When I was in law school I got food poisoning from a fast food burger place and to this day those places, even the smell, can churn my stomach--but I don't think I miss much there.  Now I've grown to like beans quite a bit, but ketchup--never use it.   

[TheSlyBear]

The only "food battles" I had with Mom were over liver and kidneys.

I hated (and still do) the texture and flavor of liver. And if you've ever wondered what the kitchen smells like while frying up kidneys, imagine pissing on a hot radiator.

[buddha]

Pineapple (and bull testes....oops, another thread) is something that made me puke as a kid and that I will not eat to this day. My dad, being the child of the depression that he was, believed that ALL food needed to be eaten because you never knew where your next meal was coming from. So at one meal when I gagged on a piece of pineapple I got roughed up a bit. I think I was about 6 at the time. 

[mangosink12572]

It is just a shame you didn't live in Germany just after the war  - - -We were lucky to get FOOD  - - -We ate anything  and everything  - - -I never saw an apple until 1950  - -and we ate the  apple   (all of it) pits included

Then my family and three servants came to America  - -I went to Prep school and again  - -we ate whatever we were given in the dining room because  - -"that was it'

Today I eat just about  everything but I do not like  tongue - -but I will eat it

[D.A.L.U.I.]

Prep school -we ate whatever we were given in the dining room because  - -"that was it'

OMG--it was hard to tell the garbage from the entree Grease, gristle & bones, never anything resembling meat.  Once, at breakfast, they served canned peach halves.  I flipped mine over--a roach.  I yelped.  Told, "Well you don't have to eat the peach, but you disturbed breakfast--detention this afternoon!"  Fish sticks--cardboard & grease.  They had to really plan how to mess the food up & they did.

[Mike]

I am willing to try just about anything but I am also one of those texture people. I cant eat jello or scrambled eggs

[Mikekoz13]

I eat just about anything.

I have only one rule when it comes to what I willconsume:

     If it performed a "pumping" or walking function while alive, I won't eat it. (No organs or feet)

[mangosink12572]

Scrambled eggs  were the only thing we could order from the kitchen if we did not like the food we were served at school - - -To this day I love scrambled eggs

[tomgallagher]

No big deal. pretty simple, meat and potatoes.